The Long Way
by Eiridian
Summary: There are no heroes, no good guys or bad guys or anything in between guys. There's just two boys and one simple word inked on the inside of a wrist. (Soulmate AU)


Title song by Brett Eldredge

* * *

 **The Long Way**

Hizashi Yamada had been four years old when he first asked his mom about the tattooed words on the inside of her right arm. Smiling down at big green eyes so like his father's gazing curiously up at her, his mother had pulled him into her lap before explaining to him what a soulmate was.

Centuries ago, God had taken pity on man after he'd watched them wander for years searching for their missing half, oftentimes settling for someone simply because they had given up. After deciding to help his children, God had made it so that when a child reaches a certain age a tattoo would appear on the inside of their arm. The tattoo would be of the first words that the bearer's soulmate would say to them, appearing in jet black ink until the words were spoken when the two soulmates met at which time the ink would turn either red or a shade of pink.

Laughing fondly at the memory, Hizashi's mother had read what her tattoo said. "'I think you forgot your receipt.' Your father was working at a grocery store when I met him and he'd been trying to build up the courage to talk to me. That was his brilliant plan to start a conversation."

"Mommy, when will I get my tattoo?" Hizashi had been bouncing in his mother's lap with excitement, impatient to know what his arm would say one day.

"When you're older." His mother had promised. "That will be your guide, it will let you know when you have found your soulmate. Isn't that exciting?" She began tickling her son, who started squirming and squealing in glee as he tried to escape the tickle attack.

In a small town halfway across the country another mother was having almost the same conversation with her own son, but along with her words she was also using her hands to sign the explanation as dark brown eyes followed her every gesture with childlike wonder.

"Even me?" Small hands clumsily signed, a worried frown twisting lips stained red from the strawberries they were eating.

"Of course." His mother immediately signed back. "Everybody has a soulmate."

* * *

Ten years later and a good number of Hizashi's classmates were beginning to get their tattoos. It seemed like every morning there'd be new exclamations of excitement as someone showed off their fresh ink. It was the same story over and over, they would go to bed with a mild itch on their arm and wake up to find words scrawled on their skin, words that they would someday hear for the first time from their soulmate.

Hizashi was just as excited for his friends as they were for themselves, but as the days dragged on he became more and more impatient for his own words to appear. He couldn't wait to see which words he'd have to keep an ear out for, couldn't stop himself from imagining what kind of person was his soulmate. He'd create an image and then change it, tweak it, and then start all over. Day after day he would imagine hundreds of different people and scenarios in which they would finally meet, daydreaming to the point where everyone teasingly called him an airhead.

The words never appeared.

* * *

When Shouta was thirteen his mom had run out to the convenience store real quick for some last minute ingredients to use in their dinner. She hadn't talked to her son all day as he'd left in a hurry that morning with his head down and a barely formed 'goodbye,' but she figured it was the teenaged years setting in. When she got home from the store, however, she could distinctly hear sniffling coming from Shouta's room and instantly went to investigate.

She found him sitting on his bed with his knees drawn up and tears running down his cheeks and arms as he weakly tried to wipe them away. Pulling her distraught son into a tight hug, she had to try several times to gain enough of his attention to ask what was wrong. Wordlessly, Shouta lifted his arm so that she could see the one word inked onto his skin.

 _Oh._

"Well, that word could mean a lot of things!" She tried to cheer her son up even as she was thinking the exact same thing he was.

"My soulmate won't want me because I can't talk." Shouta's hands were shaking as he signed.

"No, sweetie, that's not true. Your soulmate is going to love you."

No matter what she tried or what she said, Mrs. Aizawa could not stop the tears that were from falling from the saddest brown eyes that she had ever seen.

* * *

High school was even worse for Hizashi because everybody had gotten their tattoos except for him. Despite his mother's continued conviction that it was just late in coming, Hizashi no longer believed that he'd someday wake up to black ink on his arm. He'd even taken to wearing long sleeved shirts just to avoid the awkward question of where his tattoo was, laughing it off to his friends by telling them that his tattoo was ridiculously long and inappropriate.

Sometimes he would stare down at his pale arm and wonder why God hated him. He wasn't a bad person, there were plenty of serial killers and rapists that had soulmates and he was neither of those. Yes, he could be loud and obnoxious and he knew that some people hated him, but he also knew that he was super kind and caring and all he wanted in the world was someone to love. He'd be a good soulmate, he just knew it, so then why didn't God see him fit to pair with anyone?

Hizashi had lots of friends and with his outgoing, sociable personality he'd always have friends so it's not like he'd be living out his days alone. Regardless, he still wanted someone special. He wanted someone that he had an indescribable connection with, someone who he could laugh over silly inside jokes with, someone to come home to after a long day, someone who he could be affectionate with as much as he wanted… Sure, he could have found someone who lost their soulmate and settle down with them, he was basically a permanently free agent, but that thought just felt wrong.

He wanted his soulmate.

* * *

College slowly rolled around and Hizashi decided to enroll in a music therapy program. He'd always loved music and would turn to it on his lowest days, and the idea that he could make a career out of using music to help other people filled him with joyful purpose. There was always that hole inside him where his nonexistent soulmate should have been, but throwing himself into his studies was a good distraction from that pain.

Shouta went into a program for special education teachers. He'd always wanted to be a teacher ever since the third grade when his teacher, a young woman who genuinely loved teaching and cared about every one of her students like they were her own, made a lasting impression on him. With his lack of voice having been such a large part of his life, Shouta had decided to become a teacher for others like him to make them feel a little less alone.

Over the years he'd taken to wearing a watch, a wristband, anything that he could to inconspicuously cover up his tattoo. He didn't want anyone to see it and ask uncomfortable questions and he really didn't want to see it himself. Despite his mother's unwavering insistence that he was probably reading it wrong, Shouta was sure that the _Oh_ on the inside of his right wrist was one of pure disappointment. Part of him honestly wished that he'd never bump into his soulmate just so he wouldn't have to see their reaction to him and his condition.

It was nearing midnight when Hizashi finally relented and decided that he'd be better off trying to get some sleep rather than keep cramming for his midterms. The librarian had been shooting him hinting glares for the past hour even though he was by no means the only student occupying the library that night. Sluggishly gathering his belongings into his bag and yawning so often that normal breathing was becoming a rarity, Hizashi slowly made his way out of the library and down the front stairs illuminated by the campus streetlamps.

As his foot was about to step off of the last step his vision went a little fuzzy and he lost his balance. Pitching forward with a startled yelp, eyes wide and mind suddenly very much awake, Hizashi watched as the sidewalk rushed up at him and he braced himself for impact.

The impact never came.

Instead of face-planting on the hard concrete, Hizashi found himself tumbling into another person who had the misfortune of passing by at the wrong time. They both went crashing to the ground, the hapless stranger taking the brunt of it as Hizashi landed on top.

Feeling horrible about his clumsiness and causing the stranger bodily harm, Hizashi instantly sat up and was all set to apologize profusely when his eyes finally got a good look at the stranger he'd bowled over. Messy black hair was tied up in a ponytail, a maturing face was beautifully angular and strong, and even with shadows from the typical college lack of sleep those dark eyes were pulling something in Hizashi's chest towards them.

"Oh."

The breathlessly spoken word stopped Shouta's heart dead in its tracks as he stared at the greenest eyes he'd ever seen. They were glowing with some kind of wonderment and awe, but that couldn't be right. That word…

"Wow, you're beautiful." The second the words left Hizashi's mouth he flushed all the way to the tips of his ears as he stuttered in embarrassment. "N-not in a weird way, of course! I-I just, uh… lack of sleep! Ya know, midterms and all that!" He waved frantically towards the library behind him as a way of explanation. "You're just… gorgeous…" He sounded like a pathetically lovestruck teenage girl but he couldn't seem to shut his mouth up. "Ah, crap, just ignore me, I'm sorry! I'm sure your soulmate would kill me for saying any of this, I'm sorry! Don't mind me, I kinda just shoot off at the mouth when I get nervous and it's so freakin' late and I've been studying for hours and-"

The blond wasn't shutting up, but Shouta for once didn't mind. He was too focused on staring at the man that he had the terrifying, horribly hopeful feeling was his soulmate. Everything in him wanted to tear the leather wristband off and look at his wrist to see if his one word had changed color, to see without a doubt if this blathering blond was truly who he was meant to be with, but he was petrified. If this was it, if this guy was his soulmate, and he ended up not liking Shouta even after staring him straight in the face… Shouta had no clue what he would do.

A hand suddenly grabbed Hizashi's, effectively shutting down his rambling as he jumped at the sudden contact. Glancing down at their two hands practically holding onto each other before looking back into the stranger's eyes, Hizashi was startled to see the hope shining brightly out of those brown eyes. This was getting weird… maybe all his talking had broken the guy's brain? That'd be a new one.

Gathering every ounce of courage that he had within him, taking a little extra from the warm contact that he had with the guy he really hoped was his soulmate, Shouta let go of the blond's hand and unfastened his wristband. They both looked down at the same time to see the bright red ink on Shouta's wrist writing out the word _Oh_.

"Um, I don't think I understand." Hizashi slowly and carefully formed his words as his mind kicked into overdrive trying to figure out the significance of seeing that word, but his confusion was only doubled when the stranger suddenly shot his hand into his bag to rummage around and pulled out a notebook and pen. Watching on as the stranger flipped the notebook open and hastily scribbled something down, Hizashi nearly jumped again as the notebook was suddenly turned so that he could see what was written.

 _Hi. I wish I had a voice to tell you this, but I'm your soulmate._

Hizashi read it once, read it twice, and then read it one more time, all the while trying to wrap his leaden brain around the written words. There was the shyest, sweetest smile forming on his brown eyed stranger's face and that glimmering hope still hadn't left his eyes, making it so that the longer Hizashi stared at him while trying to figure this whole thing out the harder he could feel himself falling.

"You… can't speak…" Hizashi's speech was still slow as the cogs in his mind slowly churned.

Shouta's heart dropped and he instinctively bit his lower lip as he braced for the rejection. This blond, who had knocked him off his feet and was still kneeling on the ground gaping like a fish out of water, who couldn't seem to shut up to save his life or form coherent sentences when it mattered, was nothing like Shouta had imagined his soulmate to be. Shouta knew nothing about him but already he could feel himself falling for vibrant green eyes, the brightest grin he'd ever seen, and a voice that he could happily listen to as it rambled on for the rest of his life.

None of that mattered though because his soulmate, who he had finally found and despite all of his previous convictions to stay aloof started falling for the second he opened his mouth, didn't want him. He'd probably let Shouta down easy, he didn't seem to be the mean type, but it would still hurt like hell to have actually seen what he could have had but then never attain it.

"That… makes so much sense!" The blond suddenly lit up like a thousand Christmas trees and Shouta actually backed away a little in uneasiness. "I always thought… but you exist! I actually _do_ have a soulmate! Oh my god, I-I want to know everything! Where are you from? What's your mom like? Do you have any pets? What's your best friend like? What's your favorite color? Oooh, what's your favorite food? Do you like movies? Can I take you out Friday night?! We can do the whole cliche first date dinner and a movie thing and I can try not to talk your ear off. That's a lie, I'm sorry, I'm probably gonna talk your ear off. You're probably gonna hate me. What's your major? How old are you? I don't even know your name yet, I keep calling you beautiful brown eyed stranger in my head but I should probably know your name. You can tell me to shut up anytime you need to, or, um, sign it. You need to teach me how to sign! I'm sure writing everything down will make your hand cramp. Oh! But then I could give you hand massages! You know, I was always so depressed every time I looked at my arm because there was nothing there, but it all makes sense now! I thought that God hated me and that I wasn't supposed to have someone and I always covered up because I didn't want people judging me and I- why do you have a Sharpie?"

Shouta could not remember ever smiling as big as he was at that moment as he dug a Sharpie out of his bag and uncapped it with his teeth. Taking a hold of his blond's hand and pushing up the sleeve covering a pale, unmarked arm, he wrote down the words that should have been there all along.

 _I love you._


End file.
